Eric's Brilliant Merlyn Formula Ford Restoration

My dear friend Eric Dean spent his winter restoring his Merlyn Formula Ford and it looks absolutely marvelous. The car wasn’t in desperate need of the full restoration job either, and I swear I left it in as good a shape as I got it when he graciously let me squeeze behind the wheel for a few laps of Road America last fall. Compare the photo from my post on that weekend with the series of photos below. They tell the tale better than I ever could of the quality of his craftsmanship in a restoration project that saw every hole in the frame patched and ground down, powdercoated, supplied with new hardware from nose to tail, and meticulously prepared. I must admit I was nervous about his livery choice until I saw these photos of the tremendous quality of the paint, which looks much more like a perfectly preserved 30-year-old paint job than it does a new respray.

Enough of my rambling, I’ll let the photos tell the story. I think it’s absolutely perfect. Something tells me Eric won’t be so quick to hand over the wheel this year, nor should he. Congratulations, Eric, on a job very well done.

[…] Friend of the blog, Eric Dean sent me some video from last weekend’s VSCDA Spring Brake at Gingerman raceway; where he took his first-ever victory in the Formula Ford class at the wheel of his ’72 Merlyn 20A. […]